The Beekeeper of Aleppo

“Which road to take, whom to trust, whether to raise the bat again and kill a man. These things are in the past. They will evaporate soon, like the river.”

In England in the temporary lodgings with the other refugees, Nuri reflects on the wait for the authorities’ decisions about their future. He feels it is no longer in his hands. The mention of killing a man with a bat foreshadows what he will later reveal about his past. The reference to the river drying up reflects the symbol of water, which runs through the book. It is also a reference to the drought which contributed to the civil war in Syria.

“The bees are family to us.”

After the civil war starts, Mustafa sends his wife and daughter to England. He stays with his son in Aleppo because of the bees, which he cannot abandon. This line encapsulates the importance of the bees in Mustafa’s life. They have provided him with a family to replace his lost mother and given him a purpose in life. This line also refers to the fact that bees live in a cooperative, organized society, like a huge family. This contrasts with the havoc and horror humans wreak upon each other in war.

“There was a whole world in her, and the customers could see this. For that moment, while they stared at the painting and then looked at her, they saw what she was made of. Afra’s soul was as wide as the fields and desert and sky and sea and river that she painted, and as mysterious.”

Nuri describes Afra before the war started, before Sami was killed and she went blind. His intense love and admiration for her is expressed here. Her artistic skill, her beauty and her deep, mysterious soul are all part of her attraction. These images depict how important she is to Nuri and at the same time, the importance of their country, Syria, with all its natural elements, which she reflects. This is a sharp contrast with how she is closed off to him, and cannot see anything, after the tragedy of Sami’s death.

“Name – My beautiful boy.

Cause of death – This broken world.”

The heartbreaking image of Mustafa recording Firas’ death in his notebook at the morgue brings home the horror of war in a few words. The line “This broken world” encapsulates the sense that society has broken down on a local and global level. After this, the sensitive and compassionate Mustafa becomes capable of murder when he kills the soldiers who killed the boys. He must flee now and try to reach his family in England.

“To stay in the UK as a refugee you must be unable to live safely in any part of your own country because you fear persecution there.”

This line from the Home Office document about claiming asylum incites fear in Nuri and he questions the social worker in depth about the meaning of “any part” and “persecution.” The words raise his blood pressure and bring back bad memories, which lead to a panic attack. The words play on Nuri’s mind afterwards.

“I wish I knew who my enemy was.”

Nuri has heard the word “enemy” from Lucy Fisher the social worker. Although she said it innocently, he takes it in the opposite way, revealing his paranoid state of mind. The line demonstrates Nuri’s insecurity after the perilous journey from his homeland, where he was no longer safe, through Turkey and Greece and several dangerous encounters. He is also his own enemy, as his mind and his memory will not give him peace. He is even estranged from Afra and has negative thoughts about her.

“On the ground near my feet there is a bee. When I look closely I see that she has no wings. I put my hand out and she crawls onto my finger, making her way onto my palm—a bumblebee, plump and furry, such soft pile, with broad bands of yellow and black and a long tongue under her body.

This powerful image of the tender and observant Nuri and the helpless bee serves to contrast with the other, darker aspects of Nuri’s behavior—as a murderer, a man with cruel thoughts about his wife’s blindness, and as a man panicky and defensive. In caring for the bee, Nuri reveals his sensitivity, his kindness, his love of nature and color and above all, bees. He reveals that his true personality is one that has been altered but not destroyed by war.

“You are too soft, too sensitive. This is an admirable quality when it comes to working with bees, but not now.” 

Mustafa’s words to Nuri in his letter as he flees Aleppo are a forewarning of the trials to come on the journey to England. Nuri’s sweet and kind nature will be sorely tested, and Mustafa here suggests that Nuri will have no choice but to change if he is to survive.

“You know, if we love something it will be taken away.”

After Sami is killed and after Nuri describes the horror of watching another boy being shot in the street in front of his mother, Afra, now blind, makes this statement. She has lost all hope, and her previously vivacious nature has died. Despite their shared grief, they cannot reach out to each other, each locked in their own pain.

“I asked myself if I should break her neck, put her out of her misery, give her the peace she wanted. Sami’s grave was in this garden. She would be close to him. She wouldn’t need to leave him.”

Nuri and Afra are in the hideout in Aleppo, while men ransack their house. This tragic thought demonstrates how terrible the situation is for Nuri and Afra after Sami’s death. Afra is in absolute torment and Nuri is capable of thinking of killing her, in an act of cruel compassion.

“The council gives her money to do this and to keep us here. She scrubs the walls and the floors as if she is trying to wipe away the filth of our journeys.”

Nuri observes and comments on the landlady of the bed and breakfast, as he does with all the residents of the bed and breakfast. This observation hints at the attitude of some of English society towards refugees. The council paying money “to keep us here” is a cold and unwelcoming statement. The image of the woman trying to clean away the dirt of the refugees’ past is ambiguous. Does she do it to help them start a new, clean, life, or is it because she thinks they are dirty? These questions highlight the ambivalent attitudes to refugees in countries offering asylum.

“Just like Bashar al-Assad’s blue eyes.”

On the journey towards the Turkish border, Nuri thinks about the loss of the rich cultural and historical heritage of Syria, through the destruction of war and also his own loss as he must leave his homeland. He sees a poster of al-Assad, untouched, while Syria is being destroyed. This is a comment on the impunity of the President while his forces commit atrocities on the people of the country.

“Our sons have gone to where the bees are, Nuri, to where the flowers and the bees are. Allah is keeping them safe for us there, until we see them again once this life is over.”

Mustafa’s email to Nuri from a camp in Serbia offers Nuri solace and hope. Mustafa is going through his own terrible journey of grief while trying to reach England, yet he is able to offer Nuri this reassurance and encouragement. Mustafa’s words reveal his strength of character and faith in Allah, heaven, and the restorative power of nature.

“That was our paradise, at the edge of the desert and the edge of the city. I look at my face on the dark screen, thinking of what to write— Mustafa, I believe I am unwell. I have no dreams left.”

Nuri writes to Mustafa from England as he awaits his asylum interview and an appointment for Afra with a doctor. As always, Nuri returns to his memories of Aleppo before the war, the bees and their honey. He is at a most desperate point, with no hope, and no dreams. However, he is finally starting to recognize his illness.

“Then she turned away from me and said nothing more, but the wind from the sea and the echo of her words got beneath my skin and froze my heart.”

At the port before the sea crossing from Istanbul to Greece at night, Nuri believes he is holding Mohammed’s hand. A woman looks at him and tells him she lost her son too. These words strike Nuri and instill a deep concern in him. He knows something is not right. This quotation illustrates the poetic nature of the novel, with its use of images from nature and the elements to accompany human sentiments.

“I stand there looking at them, and in that moment something crushes me. It’s just a piece of paper. It’s just a receptionist in a doctor’s surgery. But the sounds of chattering, people moving around me, phones ringing from the cubicles behind the desk, children laughing…I hear the sound of a bomb ripping through the sky, glass shattering….”

As Nuri faces the petty bureaucracy of England in an attempt to get medical help for Afra, he suffers a panic attack, triggered by the overwhelming noise around him and in particular the sound of a child’s laughter. This is a symptom of the PTSD he suffers as a result of the trauma of war in Syria, his son’s death, and the harrowing journey to England.

“Every king who ever ruled this place was blind, in one way or another, so that they left it full of riches and devoid of life.”

On the first Greek island, Nuri tells Mohammed a story to help him sleep. The story is an allegory of war and the blindness of despotic leadership, in a clear allusion to the president of Syria and the country’s fate.

“‘We will build things together, I can tell,’ he said. ‘We balance each other you and me. Together we will do great things.’”

Nuri thinks back to Mustafa and how inspiring, how driven, how optimistic he was, and how their relationship was like that of brothers. The word “build” has special significance: the men built hives, apiaries, homes and families together. These have all been destroyed by the war. Yet Mustafa continues to offer Nuri hope in a future where they can rebuild their lives, this time in England.

“The colors were wild—the trees blue, the sky red. The lines were broken, leaves and flowers out of place, and yet it held a beauty that was mesmerizing and indescribable, like an image in a dream, like a picture of a world that is beyond our imagination.”

On Leros, Mohammed is missing. Nuri has given Afra the colored pencils he had found for Mohammed. She has drawn a picture, though she is blind, by touch. Being able to draw again offers Afra a little respite from her suffering, and gives Nuri a little hope that color and order can come back into their lives. The beauty of the picture may remind him of Syria, but it also definitively demonstrates to him that deep down in her soul, Afra is still the creative and vivacious person he loves.

“I closed my eyes and prayed for Mohammed, the lost boy who was never mine.”

Nuri and Afra finally leave Leros for Athens, meaning Nuri has given up on finding Mohammed and knows he must move on. Here Nuri seems slightly aware that Mohammed is not real, but rather, a ghost of Sami. The word “lost’ resonates, as Sami was the real boy that he lost. Nuri prays for Sami as much as for Mohammed.

“There was part of me that was pleased to see this fear in her when she thought she’d lost me, because it meant she still loved me, even when she was locked inside herself she still needed me.”

In Pedion ton Areos Park in Athens, Nuri watches as Afra wakes up and searches for him with her hand. Their relationship has been strained and they have become almost strangers to each other, but their love endures, and Nuri feels reassured that Afra still needs him. At times, her dependence has been a burden to him—now, it is a relief.

“Sami’s eyes. They were looking up at the sky.”

This is part of Afra’s account to the doctor of how Sami died, in the breakthrough moment where she is finally able to cry and release all the pain she has bottled up since his death. The image she describes is harrowing: a mother holding her dying son in his last moments. Eyes, looking, and the sky are motifs repeated consistently in the book. Afra loses her sight when Sami can no longer see the sky, light, freedom and color.

“What leads a man to do such things?”

Nuri is listening to men discussing Nadim’s evil acts, after he himself has participated in his murder. Nuri asks this question again, aloud, but he is also asking himself how he can kill a man. His soul-searching and guilt continue after this, but he eventually reconciles himself with God.